K-2: Animal Box for Valentines Day Cards

For this activity, children will create a box for their valentines that has personality with a fun animal face. Younger children may need to have a template made for them that they can decorate, but older children may like the flexibility of creating their own animal character. This should take a minimum of 1 hour to complete, but may be modified to be shorter or longer depending on how many steps are prepared for students in advance.

h4. Materials:

1. A paper template of an animal face for students to decorate, or paper to create their own animal face.

2. A paper heart template or colored paper for students to cut out their own heart.

3. Template or paper to make animal paws.

4. Kleenex or shoe boxes

5. Valentines colored construction paper or gift wrap.

6. Colored Pens and Pencils

7. Glue Sticks

8. Cereal boxes.

9. Safe scissors

OPTIONAL: Large stick on googly eyes, stickers, other decorative items for gluing.

Directions:

1. Have the class create and decorate their animal face and paper heart. Their name should appear somewhere on the heart.

2. Have the class wrap the empty box up with the gift wrap or construction paper.

3. Create a hole in the top of the box large enough to fit Valentine’s Day cards in the top, or remove the box top.

4. Glue the animal faces to thin cardboard from the cereal boxes so they will stand up straight. Let dry.

5. Attach the heart to the long side of the rectangular box, this side will be the “front”.

6. Attach the paws to the same side. They can be attached so they look like their holding the heart (see photo) or such that they stick out of the bottom of the box.

7. Attach the dry animal heads to the other long side of the box. The face should also face the “front”.